Business

Industry lines up for a chance at the Solar Facility

Simon Corbell is trumpeting the success of his first industry consultation session for the planned “ACT Solar Facility”.

“”Thirty-eight registrants attended the Industry Consultation Session, held this morning, which marks the first formal step in the procurement process,” he said.

“I am very encouraged by the strong level of interest from industry in establishing a large scale solar power facility in the ACT. The ACT Government is strongly committed to investing in renewable energy and in making the ACT the solar capital. Our interest in establishing a solar power facility received a boost when a feasibility study undertaken last year indicated that a solar power facility was feasible in the ACT,” Mr Corbell said.

“Following this study, the ACT Government took steps to test the market to ensure it received the widest range of proposals possible. The Government has also pledged $30 million towards the construction of a solar power facility.”

The Government was seeking to employ commercially proven technology and was not committed to any particular technology or operating model at this stage.

“The Government has indicated it is seeking proposals for the development and implementation of a facility with a minimum capacity of 80,000 megawatt hours per annum which would produce enough power for at least 10,000 homes in the ACT,” Mr Corbell said.”

What’s Your opinion?

Why further north? Canberra gets more sunshine hours per day than Townsville I believe.

Maybe so, but annual solar intensity in Canberra is only 70% of say a place like Mildura or Hay. It doesn’t matter where on the electricity grid renewable electricity sources are put as long as the carbon is being reduced and transmission costs are not too high.

We need the least uneconomic methods of reducing carbon if we are serious about reducing global warming, not the most fashionable.

I doubt that solar photovoltaic is the way to go but if commercially done it will need a far smaller subsidy per KWh than what the ACT electricity consumer will be paying for feed-in tariffs to domestic PV investors. Gentleman’s scheme is therefore more of a waste of our money.

ANU’s solar dish is too expensive per megawatt, but the solar groups will certainly be putting forward several proposals, they certainly have the support/funding available to do so.

The skeptic in me says that ANU will get the gig even if they do not present the cheapest option because, in reality, building a solar power plant in Canberra is not about rational thinking, it should be built further north.